Monday May 12, 04:32 AM
Tokyo shares end morning lower after Wall Street fall - UPDATE
TOKYO (Thomson Financial) - Japanese shares finished Monday morning lower after Wall Street suffered losses on Friday, with investors discouraged by a huge first-quarter loss from insurer American International Group (NYSE: AIG - news) and record-breaking oil prices.
The market got off to a weak start as investors continued to sell stocks after a fall in U.S. equities. But losses were limited as some investors covered short positions after the Nikkei (news) fell 2.1 percent in the previous session.
'Support at the downside was not so weak as investor found little cues to sell further with external environment largely unchanged after the dollar's fall had stopped, and the Nikkei had maintained the technically important levels at around 13,500 points, ' Shinko Securities market analyst Yutaka Miura said.
The Nikkei 225 Stock Average ended the morning down 23.3 points or 0.2 percent to 13,632.04, off a
low of 13,540.68.
The broader Topix declined 9.87 points or 0.7 percent to 1,331.89, after falling as low as 1,327.21.
Decliners outnumbered gainers 1,062 to 526 with 121 issues unchanged.
Volume declined to 732 million shares from 964 million shares on Friday, when turnover unusually increased because of the day's special quotation (SQ) settlements for futures and options contracts.
On Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average shed 0.9 percent or 120.90 points to 12,745.88
as wider-than-expected losses from AIG rekindled worries about the strained state of the global financial system.
AIG reported a first-quarter loss of $7.81 billion due to losses tied to credit swaps and mortgage-related operations. It also said it plans to raise a total of $12.5 billion in new cash to strengthen its capital base.
Further weighing on sentiment was the spike in crude oil, which rose as high as $126.20 on the New York Market before settling at a record $125.96.
Exporters and banking stocks fell.
Toyota Motor (Frankfurt: 853510 - news) lost 2.3 percent to 5,180 yen and Honda Motor (Paris: JP3854600008 - news) shed 2.2 percent to 3,140 yen while office equipment manufacturer Canon (Berlin: CNN1.BE - news) slipped 0.4 percent to 5,240 yen.
Major machinery maker Komatsu (Berlin: KOM1.BE - news) lost 2.9 percent to 3,040 yen, while Nippon Steel (Berlin: NPS.BE - news) was down 2.8 percent at 591 yen.
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial (Berlin: MFZ.BE - news) fell 2.9 percent to 1,056 yen, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial (Munich: 778924 - news) dropped 2.5 percent to 824,000 yen and top brokerage Nomura Holdings (N33.SI - news) retreated 2.7 percent to 1,742 yen.
Konica Minolta Holdings surged 11.1 percent to 1,657 yen after the Japanese office equipment maker said Friday its operating profit in the fiscal year ended March rose 15 percent to a record 119.6 billion yen on higher sales of its multi-function printers and optical devices.
Shares of Takeda Pharmaceutical Co (Berlin: TKD.BE - news) . advanced 1.5 percent to 5,570 yen after the drugmaker on Friday reported a record net profit for the year to March.
($1 = 103.06 yen)
|
|
|
Send Article by Email
Send Article by IM
Blog This with Y! 360
Printable View
